Carpentarian dunnart

Sminthopsis butleri

Blamed on cats

IUCN status: Near Threatened

EPBC Predator Threat Rating: Moderate

IUCN claim: “Exotic predators (cats and possibly dogs)”

Studies in support

Carpentarian dunnarts were among small mammals negatively correlated with cat occupancy (Stobo-Wilson et al. 2020a)

Studies not in support

No studies

Is the threat claim evidence-based?

Cats have been documented among a range of ecological variables negatively correlated with Carpentarian dunnarts. Causality cannot be inferred due to confounding variables.

Evidence linking Sminthopsis butleri to cats. Systematic review of evidence for an association between Sminthopsis butleri and cats. Positive studies are in support of the hypothesis that cats contribute to the decline of Sminthopsis butleri, negative studies are not in support. Predation studies include studies documenting hunting or scavenging; baiting studies are associations between poison baiting and threatened mammal abundance where information on predator abundance is not provided; population studies are associations between threatened mammal and predator abundance. See methods section in [current submission] for details on evidence categories.

References

Current submission (2023) Scant evidence that introduced predators cause extinctions.

EPBC. (2015) Threat Abatement Plan for Predation by Feral Cats. Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, Department of Environment, Government of Australia. (Table A1).

IUCN Red List. https://www.iucnredlist.org/ Accessed June 2023

Stobo-Wilson, A.M., Stokeld, D., Einoder, L.D., Davies, H.F., Fisher, A., Hill, B.M., Mahney, T., Murphy, B.P., Scroggie, M.P., Stevens, A. and Woinarski, J.C.Z., 2020. Bottom-up and top-down processes influence contemporary patterns of mammal species richness in Australia’s monsoonal tropics. Biological Conservation, 247, p.108638.